Since the Millennium Development Goals were agreed in 2000, many developing countries have made great strides. The world was on track to achieve at least the first Millennium Goal of halving the number of extreme poor, and it was coming close to reaching several other objectives as well. But the present crisis is wiping out that hard fought progress. Poor countries’ access to credit has been reduced, resulting in slower investment and growth; already pitiful overseas development assistance (ODA) levels are falling; and Africa might be robbed of its one chance in a generation to make real progress. In the meantime, the world lacks an effective system of global governance. The three deficits in the system I elaborate below have hampered the structure in the past, but they are especially crippling in the present situation.
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09 Mar 2009 / Eveline Herfkens
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04 Jan 2009 / Carolyn Deere
When the WTO starts its work for 2009 this week, three items must be at the top of the agenda: debating the selection and mandate of the agency’s Director-General (Pascal Lamy’s current four-year term will expire this August); setting a date for a full Ministerial Conference this year in Geneva; and forging a forward-looking agenda for that meeting.
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30 Oct 2008 / Arunabha Ghosh
Don’t waste your energy tweaking at the margins.
This was the crux of Hunter Nottage’s presentation at GEG on 24 October, on the integration of developing countries in the WTO legal regime.
Nottage is Counsel at the Advisory Centre on WTO Law, a Geneva-based non-profit organisation tasked with offering litigation, legal advice, and legal training services to developing countries. Established six-and-a-half years ago, the ACWL aims to reduce the asymmetry of access to the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Mechanism by responding to financial constraints and lack of legal expertise that many developing countries face. It has participated in 20 per cent of all DSM activity and lost only one case to date. But the core of Nottage’s presentation was to challenge some of the received wisdom, arguing that in order to improve access to the DSM, it was necessary to reform trade rules rather than focus on procedural changes for disputes.
